Julene Tripp Weaver

Sex Pays

I.
Not some mean son
out of the wood shack
carrying his axe to slash
me down—some cunt
bitch, full of, you thinkyou can write, or some
roller blade dare devil
knocking me out mid-
way round the track
for fun. Not these
blow-for-blow hard
muscle-AP-bullies,
billy clubs in their hands
sneer-faces distorted
mirror fun house
cadavers, tired, years
away from their art
with poisonous snake
tongues. No, give me
someone kind, orange
juice in their hand, a
pink terry cloth robe,
sugar coated words
without harm. Let me
feel such love, true
inspiration bred from
kindness, a kindred soul.

II.
What is the true revelation in the story? Is it sex
pays or is it earning that first wad of cash?
It is sex pays. That a girl has a body to fall
back on, like the gay boy street hustler
kicked out of his home. Sex, a way to
earn. In it you may find a minute of kindness
or be fucked-over so bad your body is found
in a garbage can in an alley, a discarded
torso from one bad trick. Sex pays is
the point, some win, others lose.

[I couldn't not notice: Lack of Lust.]

—after D.A. Powell

I couldn't not notice: Lack of Lust.
Fled like a back door runner. Vision
impeded by speed of light and the fall
into the black hole when I
fell over the side into that grapefruit.

In the grocery store our eyes
over sweet blood oranges and I
wanting organic saw smut in
the corners of his eyes: Drifted
twofold in clouds of healthy heart.

Good for you food: plump ripe tomatoes
bursting skin to squeeze, if
only I could, can't take my eyes
off of you. This danger of
pesticides and random acts of

kindness: He bent down to save
the wounded fallen tomato. Blood red
his eyes on my legs perfect size eleven.
Wide aisles to wheel carts. I never expected
love in reconstituted orange juice.

Lemon tree you hand me: Lemonade
might as well do something useful, write
poetry. Take an apple a day. Don't mix
over-the-counter with St John's Wort:
the China Great Wall might fall.

Gas, intestines, run full on empty,
crisis mode at orange alert caustic:
When will you die? Green plastic frogs
live forever. Where is the commission to
study combustibles, register torture?

What She Wants

He could have. Yes, it was possible.
The wonder of what He would/could do.

The mystery, but would He?
She waits. Story of female. Fill me.

He would. He could. He was first the father.
He died. He couldn't anymore.

That was devastation. All that gone out of her.
His life bent to death. Then, he was Uncle.

Big. Beautiful. Uncle. Taking her to bars.
A drink on her tongue. Surely he would.

The sheer possibility of Uncle.
Anything possible. Wonderful.

The places he took her. Opened doors. Wide.
She waits. Empty. Wanting. Missing Father.

Uncle did not. She thought he would.
Brief. Years. Time has a way. Other things in time.

Hormones. The surprise of blood. Cute boys.
Church. An altar. A boy in a church.